Memeorandum

May 15, 2006

Rove Indicted?

The not-always reliable Jason Leopold of TruthOut set hearts fluttering with his story that Rove has been indicted and Fitzgerald has met with Rove's attorneys to work on a plea deal.

TruthOut helpfully provides a compendium of Mr. Leopold's earlier work on this investigation, so we can see for ourselves how often Rove has been near indictment before.

Let's note that the latest story has already evolved slightly - here is the current lead:

Special
Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the
offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During
the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former
Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging
the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to
investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed
one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get
his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the
meeting said Saturday morning.

The original report gave Rove "24 hours"; the correction to "24 business hours" was inserted after, well, nothing had happened in 24 hours. Personally, I have heard folks speak in terms of business days, but never "business hours" - if Federal guidelines require clerical overtime after an eight hour day, does this really mean that Rove has Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to get ready? Maybe that will be the next clarification.

And no worries - if nothing happens, no less a reporter than Steven Leser has already stepped up to explain that Mr. Leopold was the innocent dupe of a subtle yet vicious BushCo disinformation campaign.

Meanwhile, Rove spokesperson Mark Corallo has denied this to the NY Sun, Byron York, and (I'll bet) other news outlets who aren't going to dignify the initial report with any coverage. [UPDATE: Good guess - Jeralyn Merritt runs a forceful denial from Rove spokeman Mark Corallo which includes this:

7. He has received calls from the major papers on this and denied the story to all of them.]

All that said, I am personally predicting (with 70% probability) a Rove indictment for this Friday, May 19, with a second guess of Wednesday, May 24.

Fortunately, I have no sources for that. And as to track record I was OK with my predictions (but erring to pessimism) last fall, when I predicted indictments for Libby and two others, but not Rove.

MORE: Jeralyn Merritt talks to Jason Leopold (and gets an astonishing rebuttal from Rove's guy Corallo) and articulates my own hunch, which is that Fitzgerald may have been negotiating with Rove's team about a *possible* indictment:

I'm wondering: Did Jason's sources understand the difference between
Fitzgerald handing over a copy of the charges he said Rove would be
indicted on if he refused the offer Fitz was making and an already
voted-on Indictment?

It's hard to believe folks could get that wrong, but that may be the best reconciliation we get, unless someone (or lots of someones) are just making stuff up.

GOOD POINT: Maybe "instructed
one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get
his affairs in order" meant that Rove would have to surrender during the next episode of "24". Boy, if Rove is threatend with missing Jack Bauer in action, he'll turn in a second.

OUCH: Making some stuff up and plagiarizing the rest? No, not Ben Domenech, but Jason Leopold - Salon tells their story.

WH DCoS Karl Rove spoke at the American Enterprise Institute
this a.m. and to the surprise of some, he took questions. Asked about
his role in the CIA leak investigation, he declined to comment,
referring the questioner to a statement released by his attorney. Rove:
"I have nothing more to add. Nice try, though."

Let's call that a tearful confession, then! Meanwhile, who has received the statement from the attorney?

CORN: David Corn from “The Nation Magazine” on a
different subject. Scott McClellan told the White House press corps,
many who are here today, that he had spoken to you and you were not
involved in the CIA leak. Can you explain why the American public,
almost two and a half years later, hasn’t been given an explanation and
don’t you think it deserves one for that misinformation because it does
seem you were to some degree, though maybe disputed, involved in that
leak?

ROVE: My attorney Mr. Luskin made a statement on April 26th. I refer
to you that statement. I have nothing more to add to it. Nice try,
though.

My concern - and the reason I write this - is that Leopold's ubiquitous
reporting has set expectations very high in the blog community. We're
at a moment when blogs are under assault
by prominent media and establishment figures. I wouldn't want to see
him used as a cudgel to flog the progressive netroots as a bunch of
conspiracy nuts. There's enough of that already. We don't need to
provide ammo to our opponents.

No worries - like chipmunks, we can find the nuts easily enough already.

Comments

Perhaps it's not the government.

Posted by: Neo | May 15, 2006 at 10:14 AM

Fertik: Anyone can buy a list of your incoming and outgoing phone calls, cell or land-line, for $110 online...
So I went to their site, plopped down $110, and within a day I had a list of every single phone number that called my cell, or that I called from my cell, for the month of November. I even had the dates the calls were made, and for a premium I could find out how long the calls were.

My cell provider itemizes all this info, including the length of the calls, on my monthly bill. If Fertik had asked me, he could have swapped carriers and gotten all that info for free.

Let's focus a bit on this "24 business hours" stuff. Has anyone ever heard that term used anywhere? I certainly haven't. "Three business days" is the common, actually universal, usage. Not only have I never heard a reference to some number of business hours, but I don't think there is a sentient being on this planet who would construe "24 hours" to mean 24 business hours unless it was explicitly stated that way. So there's a real problem with the "sources'" report of the deadline. Next, why would Rove be given 24 hours (or any other amount of time) to "get his affairs in order?" It's not as though he's going to go to jail. If he's indicted, he'll surrender, get booked, and be on the street in an hour, as was Libby. Could these and other oddities in the account simply be the result of garbling and misunderstanding? It's hard to believe that there isn't at least something behind this story--but remember, these are the folks who alerted us to the 22 imminent indictments. Go figure...